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Thursday, 21 April 2016

DIY: Queen's Head Scatter Cushions

The Royals love a doll's house. Fact.So in honour of our Queen's 90th Birthday I thought we'd re-visit a tutorial from the 52 week project and whip up some Vintage Stamp Scatter Cushions.

Happy Birthday Your Majesty!*dramatic bow*

Both my Granddad's had stamp collections, sadly neither Granddad is with us anymore but the stamp collections have been united and now live happily in Dad's cellar. (For any avid stamp collectors out there, we've been assured their value is purely sentimental!)

The colours and designs of some of these are so pretty, I've been racking my brain for ideas to use them with out destroying them, and so today I bring you vintage stamp scatter cushions.

You will need some basic technology for this one, but I figured as you're already reading this on a computer/ device we should be Ok!

What I used:

Assorted stamps (you could also use photos, magazine cuttings etc. or feel free to use the my printed stamp images *For Personal Use Only Please*.)

Scanner/ photocopier + printer

Plain white paper

White fabric

Sharp scissors

Dylon Image maker (available form most good craft shops)

Small paint brush

Damp sponge/ cloth

What I did:

First I chose the stamps I wanted to use, went a bit mad as there were so many cool ones but I'm sure I'll use them all eventually!

Next I laid all the stamps face down on the glass of the scanner/ copier (just a bog standard home use one.) and scanned the stamps and saved them to the computer. You can just colour photocopy but scanning means you've got the file saved for future use.

NOTE: If you are using designs with text or numbers on, use a basic image editor on your computer or online to flip the image over. It should now read back to front on your screen. This means that the text will be the correct way round once you've transferred the image to fabric. You will notice that I failed to do this and was kicking myself afterwards!!

When you're ready print the images and cut to size.

Lay your fabric pieces on some grease proof paper and using a small brush apply a generous layer of the image maker all over the printed area of the design you wish to transfer. It should be enough so that the image is clouded but not completely blocked out.

Lay the stamps sticky side down onto the fabric, press flat and leave to dry completely.

(I also sandwiched the fabric between grease proof paper and laid a book on top to keep it flat.)

Drying time = One viewing of War horse, (sob-fest!) a trip to do the food shopping and have a bit of a tidy up. All in all, about 4 hours.

When you're ready, take a damp sponge and soak the the paper all over. Starting from the centre start to gently peel the paper off to reveal the transferred image underneath. Dab any excess moisture off, if there's still residue from the paper use a dry cloth to gently brush any remaining layers away. Don't over do it else you might start to rub off the image!

Seal the image with a thin layer of the image maker and leave to dry.

When the fabric is dry it's ready to be transformed into the mini master piece of your choosing!